About

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About Us

I am a graphic designer, illustrator and writer from Portland, Oregon, now working as a freelancer in Hannover, Germany. I am married to a beautiful, smart and (unintentionally) hilarious German woman. She has two Master’s degrees and is currently working on her Ph.D., so she thinks she’s smarter than me. However, I continue to remind her I am emotionally intelligent, which is why I am able to gently explain the shortcomings of German television programming — like the amazingly awful crime show Tatort — without spending more than one night on the couch. Maybe two.

I started ‘Oh God, My Wife Is German.‘ back in August of 2011, but it REALLY started years before, when I began writing down the hilarious things my German wife was saying on a daily basis. I had a stockpile of quotes, denglish mistranslations and priceless idioms saved on my iPhone, just sitting there for us to laugh at during dinner. We started sharing them with our close friends and quickly realized these were not just inside jokes, but actually funny pieces of humor with widespread appeal. I asked her permission to begin a blog with her quotes as the focal point, and she said yes. To this very day, she remains the blog’s biggest fan.

It began with 1 or 2 followers, of course, but grew steadily over the months as people began to take notice. We had a couple hundred followers — which grew to a couple thousand — and then one of my posts about Americans marrying Germans was featured on WordPress.com as a “Freshly Pressed” article, and that gave the blog another bump. After we moved to Germany, I began including posts about culture shock and life as an American expat, and then our readership grew quickly through word of mouth. Before I knew it, we crossed the 10K mark, and new readers starting gathering around us like a bunch of rubberneckers gawking at a flaming car wreck. Since then, our blog has grown to over 200K+ readers.

Our readers are awesome people and I love to hear from them. My goal for ‘Oh God, My Wife Is German.‘ is to make our readers laugh. Plain and simple. That’s why I always post on Monday mornings, when people need to laugh the most. But the one person I truly want to make laugh is my beautiful German wife. She’s the funniest, most wonderful person I know, and really, this blog is just one long love letter to her (written with a near-lethal dose of sarcasm).

Oh man, so is my little brother, married to a German voman. He is the one with a phD from Oxford and is a professor overseas in Europe. She is a beautician and brilliant but I tell you what, she is constantly telling my bro how much smarter she is and ha! I just sit back and laugh. We call her little H — for you know who…
This is funny.

After seeing you “liked” my post (thank you very much by the way) I had to call my best friend, Colleen, to ask if her father read my blog. When I saw your title, I just assumed it had to be my best friend’s father, who at some point in his marriage had to exclaim at least once, Oh God, My Wife Is German. When Colleen and I were young we sat around and made her mom say things, like “pony” with her accent. Being a very sweet lady, she indulged us. When we were going out on dates she told us how to flirt in German. Ah, you brought back some memories! Jeeze, my best friend’s mom is German! Hugs to you and your wife.

I just stumbled upon this blog and the Denglish entries cracked me up. Made me think of my grandfather, who was from Austria (but sounded like he was from Transylvania) and routinely made us laugh with his vociferous pronouncements on just about everything. Thanks for making me laugh. Looking forward to reading more.

You have given me an idea re the “German” angle – especially since you indicate that your wife has “unintentional” humorous characterisitcs – what do you think – do you want to give me any suggestions?

lol, love your about page. I am about to check out the other pages. I use to live in Portland too two years ago before I moved to Germany. I love that city so beautiful. In fact I love that there is hardly no winter there except two years ago when we were snowed in!

As a former German historian and someone who has lived in Germany numerous times, I absolutely love your blog. It never ceases to make me laugh and/or bring back culture memories. Keep the posts coming!

Your whole site is a riot! Love the gif galleries. A couple months ago, you left a comment on my FP blog post and I am just now getting around to visiting the blogs of my nice commenters. I will def stop by here again. Thank you.

I have been nominated for the Tell Me About Yourself Award and I thought of you when putting together my list of favorite blogs. If you would like to play along the premise is to tell us seven things about yourself and then post 15 of your favorite blogs.

I would like to nominate you as well for the Tell Me About Yourself Award.
You’re funny stories are so fun and well written. I can still picture you falling out of that boat. Thank you for all the smiles, laughs and nose squirts!

Thanks for “liking” my “A Year in the North Cape” and for following my blog. I’m following yours as well and think it’s very entertaining. My husband is Norwegian and I’m American and our kids are dual citizens. Makes for an interesting life mixing the two cultures.

Hi there! Thanks for visiting and liking my post “Confessions of a Sunset Junkie.” … Enjoyed the first part of your New York story and looking forward to reading further. Your style makes me smile … :-) … Be well …

I have two master’s degrees and I’m three courses and a dissertation away from my Ed.D. I think my boyfriend thinks I think or know I’m smarter than him and I take exception to that idea! But if it’s true, it hasn’t hurt our relationship!!!!

Now i finally managed it, to take a look a your website. I met you and your gorgeous wife at Kaiser in Hannover Nordstadt at the 17th of November. Although i dont remeber much ( it was on my birthday, and i was a little bit drunk ,-) ), it was a real pleasure to meet you.

I love this blog! Your posts literally make me laugh out loudly! Oh, and my boyfriend says “hi”. He’s British and I am German – he can probably relate to pretty much everything you post.
As for the Denglish: I would like the word “bacony” to become an official part of the English language. There just isn’t any suitable translation for “speckig” ;)

My first attempt to order something in McDonals in Germany ended with ordering Blauberry Muffin. My husband laughed for hours. Thanks God the woman that worked there was also immigrant and did not notice. Ever since than, in our household there are no Blaubeeren or bluberries but only blauberries :)

thank you for stopping by and liking my post “holocaust remembrance day.” i really appreciate it. taking a quick peek what what you have here, im looking forward to following your blog – creative and very funny. it’s been hard not to laugh out loud at work – good thing the boss is out of the office today haha. love the writing style and humor.

Thank you so much for liking my blog, because I wonder if I would have found you otherwise, and that would be a real shame.
You and your wife are tremendously funny and obviously two peas in a pod!
There’s something to be said for loving one’s spouse – and quite a lot more to be said for sharing a vibrant, quirky, slightly nutty sense of humor AND loving him/her!
Great work!

I’m really enjoying your blog! Bonus points to you for being from Portland. A lot of your Denglish moments and experiences in Germany remind me of when I lived in Switzerland. (I know Germany and Switzerland are different, don’t worry. But I lived in the German speaking part which I believe is technically the closest you can get to Germany without being Germany.) PS Have you had the dear pleasure of hearing/speaking Schweizerdeutsch yet?? Make sure you get to Switzerland at some point and attempt speaking German there!

As said above, you might have been nominated tons of times before by now, but as i really like the blog and your artwork ive nominated you for the shine on award.. see whether you´ll do something with it or not, this is my small token of appreciation for all the smiles you bring on my face. As a dutchmen living 5km away from germany i can understand your love/hate relationship with germans :)

Hello..!! Omg..I love your blog..!! Your stories are amazing; as well as the artwork/photos you choose for your posts. Therefore, I award you with The Very Inspiring Blogger Award which is a fun way of building community.

I would like to say thank you for writing this blog. I am about to marry a German myself and actually participate in a German wedding. Since I am the Braut, I am also in the planning committee. Your entries describe what I think quite often when it comes to certain German traditions. Thanks for saying the sarcastic offbeats of the German culture for me =).

My daughter has a bachelor degree in music from, of all places, a college in Texas. She quickly moved to Germany to study music from where the only true music came from. She has since added two master’s degrees from school in Germany (one of them is in German because she had to take so much remedial Geman why not). She lives in Hong Kong only because her boyfriend (PhD in theoritical, computational, physics, think Einstein) works for a Swiss bank there. From all I have gathered about why Germany is so much better your blog is right on. Glad to have found it. And yes, her boyfriend can talk about the God particle on a first name basis but that doesn’t explain why German words are 200 leters long.

I get the impression you have quite a zest for life, taking it with a grain of humor. I sent this one on to my Fb page.
Thank you for liking my “Hillbilly Striptease”. Being a hillbilly myself I enjoyed it. I hope you will continue to follow my blog. As I’ve been told by one reviewer–”You never know what you’ll find on it.”

I’m excited to have found your blog! (Thank you, Freshly Pressed). I’m an American who lived in Duesseldorf from 2000-2005. Your humor and experiences will certainly resonate with me. Looking forward to more fun!

Congratulations! You’ve been nominated as a VERY INSPIRING BLOGGER by Jadi at jadicampbell.wordpress.com. Go to her most recent post to see your nomination and learn about the award. THANK YOU for sharing your experiences and ideas with the blogosphere!

My German husband will get a kick out of this. We were 3 years in Hamburg with him often in Hangover:-) See… i can’t even speak proper English. Now we are back in the states and his grammar is influencing mine instead of the other way around! He’s a jazz musician with an awesome sense of humor and a huge heart and we make sure to always wear socks and never be near a draft lest we catch a cold! Tschüß. wendy

Hi favorite expat! I just want you to know that I bragged about finding your blog over at my third world kitchen and I may have cooked something up for you. I know you don’t exactly need the small recognition but I sure hope you can spare, say 5 minutes of your time to check it out :)

Curiously enough I am now understanding the ways of the chilenos (from Chile) thanks to your blog.Their is a long history of german migration here and it has turned this country into the least Latin American of them all.

Hey, a very funny blog… I love reading it. I find so many familiar things in there. I will recommend it to my boyfriend.. I am sure he will enjoy it.. having a German girlfriend he probably could tell a couple of stories, too ;)

The title alone made him smile ;) I can relate to so many things here.. For example, I will never understand what’s wrong with Kinder surprise eggs? Either I died when I was a child and am now living in some kind of weird heaven WITH Kinder eggs or I survived hundreds of them. We Germans are heroes :) Also, my Denglish will never leave me, no matter how hard I try.. I will always give a gender to everything.. my car, my computer..they are all male for me and my lamp female. I’m sure you know what I am talking about :D Anyway.. these are just two things I find familiar. Have a great weekend.. looking outside the window and seeing Hannover weather makes it sooo easy, right? ;)

The title alone made him smile :) I can relate to so many things here.. for example, I will never understand what’s wrong with Kinder surprise eggs. Either I died when I was a child and am now living in some kind of heaven WITH Kinder eggs or I survived hundreds of them. We Germans are heroes ;) Also, my Denglish will never leave me, no matter how hard I try. My things will always have a gender.. my car, my computer.. male. My lamp.. female. I’m sure you know what I am talking about. Anyway, these are just two things that I found familiar. Hope you have a great weekend. Looking outside the window Hannover weather makes it sooo easy, right? ;)

somehow my comment box does not work the way I want and is eating my comments, then spitting them out when I decide to write it again.. you might have another doubled comment again ;) sorry about that.
Anyway, so what I was trying to say (which disappeared) was that I don’t wanna be a pessimistic German, but I don’t want to get my hopes up. It seems like spring today, but might snow around easter again.. easier to hide eggs under the snow, which is the bright side :)

Totally got it, Monisbaking. No worries. I see duplicate comments all the time, but yours was fine and your point was clear. I even mentioned it to my wife, and we both stared out the window to see if the trees were blooming. (Couldn’t tell.) :)

Just found your blog – like it! As we have a similar audience related to Germany travel at Live Like a German we are wondering if you’d be interested in a guest article on our blog? Let me know. Thanks!

Hi Bettina! I don’t have time to write anything for your blog, but I would welcome a guest post from you on mine. Or you could reblog one of my posts on yours, after coming to an agreement for approval. Let me know!

Hello there fellow expat in Germany. I came across your blog when I found out you started following me on Twitter (thanks!) I’m going to take my time and read your blog slowly from the beginning I think. We most likely have a bit in commons since both of us have German wives. I’m kind of curious about the possible similarities and differences since we live in the southern part of Germany.

Greetings from Nordfriesland. I’m from So. Cal. I’ve been in Germany since 2001 with my German wife. I brew beer as a hobby. I’ve been trying to share a little American culture here. (I haven’t been very successful) Last year I visited a school friend in Portland and fell in love with the city. It was hard to leave and fly back to my island. Anyway, if you find yourself in my neck of the woods, stop in and we’ll share a beer or two and a few tales of life in Germany.
David

Oh goodness, you crack me up! My mascara is making my eyes burn from laughing so hard. I’m a German gal living in Texas since the 70’s and I miss those foods! When I get back to Germany I stuff myself and gain a few pounds EVERY time. Have you tried Leberklöschensuppe? I miss it so much.

I am so excited to have found your blog through the latest WordPress post about expats and traveling. I am living in Phuket Thailand with my husband and daughter and deal with strange cultural things all the time and think they are hilarious. I can’t wait to start reading yours! Have a great day!

Hello! I’ve decided to read and follow 10 interesting and new blogs a day every day of May 2015, and yours is today’s #1! Feel free to come visit me when you can at http://www.thatssojacob.wordpress.com, and follow if you like what you read. Happy blogging!

PS: Today, I am looking at German bloggers, because I am the world’s newest German citizen! Check my blog for details :)

I’d say there’s been more positive aspects than negative. I just got naturalized last month, so technically, I’m one of them now hehehe

I co-author a blog that aims to help other expats (in particular, migrants from the Philippines) get settled into the bureaucratic maze that comes with moving here, as well as life in Germany, in general

More power to you and your blog! Definitely 5 Merkel diamonds from me ;-)

I am cracking up about your experience, thoughts and everything you write. I am German, I lived in Minnesota, Minnetonka and now living in the Netherlands with my soon-to-be-husband.
I experience also funny things with my husband, but I am still the person saying ridicolous things, just because I am speaking his language and he doesnt speak german haha

Just found your blog after googling Turkish hairdressers in Munich. My experience wasn’t as harrowing, but I had to know there were other people out there who appreciated them. I’m back home in San Francisco now, but I miss Germany. Happy New Year!